confusion
I was lucky to be in Japan in April, a few days after the peak of the sakura bloom. I had a Sunday afternoon free and one evening. In all the pictures of sakura I strangely find this photo to be my favourite.
You can see the whole Tokyo, Japan, April 2018 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].
The world is much better than in the past and it is still awful.
Dr. Max Roser, in Memorizing these three statistics will help you understand the world [gatesnotes.com] on Gatesnotes.com.
The idea of the article is important; knowing a few basic statistics about the world will help everyone to understand and contextualize the news and social media noise we encounter all day. To make an informed judgment on the veracity of online, and offline, claims, too often qualitative and editorial, about the world. Doom and gloom sell, “if it bleeds, it leads” but now is the best time to be alive.
Today in my Facebook feed:
Finally I know who the man in the picture is! [confusion.cc] Finally! It’s been 17 years since I saw his face, and mistook it for someone my Ex knew.
This article [newyorker.com] in the New Yorker is depressing in third world corruption stench of the whole thing, but there is some silver lining: The fact that banks are submitting such detailed reports about possible fraudulent activities, and beyond just money movement they are paying attention to the context. This is heartening, if a bit Big Brother scary.
Banks are legally mandated to file suspicious-activity reports with the government in order to call attention to activity that resembles money laundering, fraud, and other criminal conduct
Ronan Farrow, in Missing Files Motivated the Leak of Michael Cohen’s Financial Records [newyorker.com]
…
In paperwork filed with the bank, [Cohen] said that the company would be devoted to using “his experience in real estate to consult on commercial and residential” deals. Cohen told the bank that his transactions would be modest, and based within the United States. In fact, the compliance officers wrote, “a significant portion of the target account deposits continue to originate from entities that have no apparent connection to real estate or apparent need to engage Cohen as a real estate consultant.” Likewise, “a significant portion of the deposits continues to be derived from foreign entities.”
New favorite term: Money-Humping. Ah Gizmodo:
“When the rich and ethically disinclined are busy money-humping each other, all kinds of weird connections are bound to pop up.”
Tom McKay, in It’s Sure Weird That the Russian-Linked Firm That Paid Michael Cohen $500,000 Also Registered Alt-Right Websites [gizmodo.com]